


Just a Sandwich

by walkingsaladshooter



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: A little emotional hurt/comfort, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Emotional Outburst Disaster Children Find Love, F/M, One Night Stands, These two nerds have chemistry always
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-23 19:22:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20198251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/walkingsaladshooter/pseuds/walkingsaladshooter
Summary: Rey and Ben hook up at a bar. After sex, he makes her a sandwich. This, to Rey's utter mortification, makes her cry.





	Just a Sandwich

**Author's Note:**

> (I try to make it clear in the fic that they're like 90% sober when they decide to hook up, but there is alcohol involved, just fyi!)

From where she lies, wrapped up in the sheets like an extremely comfortable, satisified-floppy burrito, Rey can easily see the desk next to the bed. And on the desk, a calligraphy set. Two very nice pens flanking a bottle of honest-to-god liquid ink. Next to that little stand, a small wooden box with the lid open, which holds a row of what she thinks are the nibs. They're called nibs, right? No paper, though, not on top of the desk. The desk, like the rest of the apartment, is very neat.

She nestles down deeper into the pillows and sheets. It's warm in here, compared to the drizzling rain and chilly air outside that they'd fogged with their breath on the way between the bar and here. Over in the tiny kitchen, separated by a thin wall, she can hear him open and close the fridge.

The calligraphy set catches her eye again. It reminds her that she doesn't actually know all that much about Ben.

Going home with someone she just met—and proceeding to have sex—isn't something Rey typically does. Nothing wrong with it, of course, but it hasn't been a habit of hers since college. But she's known Ben Solo (they did, at least, exchange last names; she'd seen his on his card when he closed his tab and had pointed it out, which had made him smirk and say, "And yours? A fair exchange?") for about four hours now, and here she is, naked in his bed, all blissed-out and kittenish after two very nice orgasms.

(She'd thought she was going to come a third time when he came, the way his brow furrowed and hands splayed against the bed and voice broke in a surprisingly high-pitched groan, how he'd slowly lowered himself down and pressed a kiss to the underside of her jaw; but that had been hyperbole, if she was honest with herself. Still. It had been _hot_.)

In the kitchen, she hears a splurting sound, followed by Ben swearing not-so-softly.

"Was that a fart?" she calls.

"The mustard. Fuck you."

"You already did."

He laughs at that, muffled by the wall.

"That's how it started," she imagines telling Finn tomorrow. "With this, like, playful banter. We were both sitting at the bar, and he accidentally took some of my fries instead of his own, and when I got annoyed about it he could have gotten mad back, but instead he made this dry joke."

"Oh, here we go," Finn says in her imagination.

"He was funny and good-looking and we just clicked. The fuck-yous were playful, not mean. And we didn't even have to explain that."

Because she'd just—known. He'd had a softness in his eyes, something gentle and careful. Nervous, almost.

"Why are you at the bar alone?" she'd asked.

"I could ask you the same," he'd said.

And Rey had smiled. "I'm not alone. Not anymore." And the way he'd smiled back at her—he'd understood.

She sits up slowly, keeping the sheets bunched around herself. They're really soft. Ben's place isn't very big—it's a studio, not the tiniest most cramped kind but not a huge loft either—and he doesn't have much in it, but what is there is well-made and lovely in its simplicity.

"Your place is so clean," she calls towards the kitchen.

"I clean when I'm stressed," he replies.

Rey snorts. "You must be the most anxious person in the city. This place is spotless."

Ben appears around the corner from the kitchen nook, naked, hair mussed, carrying two plates. "Guilty as charged." He's smiling at her, and he walks back towards the bed with the food he made for them.

The fries at the bar had been filling, but enthusiastic sex easily rebuilds one's appetite. The fries had also fortunately helped soak up the alcohol so it didn't hit her bloodstream as hard. Ben had seemed awfully concerned about that as they made out in the hallway by the bathrooms.

"How drunk are you?" he'd asked, low and smooth, against her neck.

"Tipsy. In full control of my faculties."

"You're sure."

"Positive."

"Good."

It was sweet and hot at the same time. A lot of things about him were sweet and hot at the same time: the way he caressed her face before he pulled her hair, the way he stared at her naked body like it was the most enthralling thing he'd ever seen, the way he brings her a sandwich now. For Rey, being fed can, in certain contexts, make a person even more attractive to her. She can't help it.

Ben sits on the bed with her, handing her a plate. There's a sandwich, cut nicely on the diagonal, and Rey's famished (and not sure if they're fueling up for another round or getting ready for post-sandwich sleepy cuddles, but she's happy to prepare for either), so she takes a bite immediately.

It's _so good_. A sandwich has no right being this good.

"Holy shit," she says, mouth full. (Who cares if her mouth is full. They've had their mouths on each other's genitals; at this point, talking while chewing is hardly too familiar.)

Ben's brow furrows. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. This is amazing. What did you do to it?"

He huffs a small laugh. "It's just a sandwich." Leaning in, he points to the layers in the cross-section of her portion. "Whole-grain mustard, muenster, smoked turkey, pickle, arugula." With a shrug, he turns back to his plate, readying for a big bite of his own. "Nothing fancy."

Suddenly Rey isn't hungry. Suddenly her stomach feels heavy, and she blinks as she stares down at the sandwich on the plate in her lap.

Just a sandwich. To Rey, growing up, "just a sandwich" was a slice of plastic-wrapped yellow cheese between two pieces of spongey bread and nothing more. When times were desperate, a packet of mayonnaise—because it had more calories than mustard—pocketed in the cafeteria or in a fast-food place she stopped in to use the bathroom, squeezed on a single slice of bread and folded in half, eaten with the slowest, most careful bites she could manage to make it last as long as possible.

Rey realizes she's crying when a tear plops onto the top slice of sourdough.

"What's wrong?" There's something hollow and vaguely frantic at once in Ben's voice. "What did I do?"

She shakes her head. "Nothing's wrong."

"What did I do?"

Sniffling, Rey scrubs at her eyes. This is horrible. This is humiliating. "You made me a sandwich," she says, her voice small.

She won't look at Ben, not while she's blubbering like this, but she can practically hear his brow furrow as he asks, "Why—why are you crying? Because of the sandwich?"

"No. Yes. I don't know. God, I'm sorry, this is so—"

"It's okay."

He says it like it's true, so Rey peeks up at him. His face is blurry through her tears, but he doesn't look freaked out. She blinks, clears her vision, sees him better. He's not freaked out. He looks—serious, quiet, steady.

What kind of man doesn't freak out when his one-night stand starts weeping in his bed over a sandwich, and how the hell did it take her this long to find him?

"It's okay," Ben repeats. "You can talk about it if you want to." For a moment it looks like he's chewing the inside of his cheek. "I get it. Not—with the sandwich. But the whole emotional outbursts over weird things. I get it. I do."

"Sure," Rey says, half rolling her eyes.

He frowns at her. "How many breakable objects do you see around my place?" Rey glances around as he continues, "None. Because I used to fucking break them when I got overwhelmed." He hunches his shoulders and fiddles with the arugula hanging out of his sandwich. "I have better coping mechanisms now, but I still don't keep breakable stuff."

There's a vulnerability in the softness of his brow, the line of his mouth, that makes something in Rey's chest do a funny little flop. Impulsively, she leans in and kisses his cheek. Then she scrubs her eyes dry, takes a deep breath, and has another bite of her sandwich.

It's really, really good.

After a moment, Ben reaches over and brushes his thumb softly against the corner of her mouth. Swallowing both her bite of food and a new flush of butterflies, Rey glances up to see the mustard on his finger as he draws his hand away, smiling softly at her. Then they sit quietly together, naked and half-wrapped in the bedsheets, eating the sandwiches he made for them.

"The thing is," Rey says, once she's finished the first perfectly triangular half of her sandwich, and Ben immediately looks to her, all intense brown eyes and dark hair falling so perfectly over his forehead; "The thing is, I kind of want to tell you why I was crying. Which is just bizarre. I barely know you. I shouldn't want to tell you. But I do."

"You can," Ben says. The soft rumble of his voice makes her chest go all funny again.

Rey clicks her tongue and squints one eye at him. "See though, that's the thing. It's really more of a third date kind of backstory." Or a tenth date, or twentieth, or never, except with Ben she has a feeling it'd be the third.

The way his face crinkles up when he smiles so big is beyond words. Adorable, and heartwarming, and more. "Is that a request for a repeat performance?"

She grins and reaches up, brushing his hair back from his forehead. His eyes flutter closed—yes, that's how he responded every time she put her hands in his hair when they were making out, during sex, even during the post-sex pre-sandwich cuddles. "Mm. I'm thinking a repeat performance tonight, if you're game, but yes. We should do this again."

"Shall I meet you in a dimly-lit bar again?" Ben's voice has gone husky, his gaze heavy as she continues stroking his hair.

"I was thinking somewhere a bit brighter so I can see these eyes of yours properly."

"There's a concert in the east park on Sunday afternoon." He turns his head, reaches up to gently catch her elbow in his hand, and kisses the inside of her wrist. "And in the meantime, you could see them better if you came closer."

Rey's smile blooms.

They don't finish the other halves of their sandwiches for a while longer.

**Author's Note:**

> P.S. Don't be afraid to come say hi on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/nuanceismyjam), [Pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.io/nuanceismyjam), or [Tumblr](http://nuanceismyjam.tumblr.com/)! (Which I use in that order, in terms of frequency.)


End file.
